Saltwater Empire

My ex upstairs neighbor graciously sent us pictures this morning of some of the wreckage of her apartment and of the building in general which the insurance inspector took. I looked at the first three. I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at the remainder of them yet. The ones I saw are haunting enough.

This week has involved a lot of random crying at weird moments. A majority of the time I still feel dazed and paralyzed, like I was for most of last week, but sometimes I feel so fucking depressed that it takes all of the energy in me just to lift my head out of my hands. Not that there aren’t wonderful things happening all around me – there are. Sometimes I feel warm and loved, giddy even. I've been the beneficiary of some incredible acts of kindness during the past week. And I so very much appreciate all of the laughter that various folks have brought into my world recently with your calls, texts, drop-bys, emails, Facebook links, ridiculous stripper dances, etc. Don't stop :) It’s all just very fleeting because the reality of the situation never abates.

It has been almost exactly four years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, killing nearly 2,000 people and displacing hundreds of thousands. I have been thinking about that event a lot lately. Compared to Katrina, the Castle Apartments disaster is nothing (at least one cat killed, 30 humans and a number of cats displaced). How fast did the news cycle on Katrina last? Maybe a month? I guess I should feel lucky that our little disaster even received two weeks of attention. To this day, I'm sure those hundreds of thousands who had to evacuate and abandon their homes are still grieving.



I am so grateful to draw from the support from my family, friends, and community. Without you all, I would be completely rudderless. <3